Has MICRO started to write news somewhere else? He used to write here many times per day but today nothing. Also Ive read that on 1st March he will move to news section but I checked his last posts and he didnt yet.

Has MICRO started to write news somewhere else? He used to write here many times per day but today nothing. Also Ive read that on 1st March he will move to news section but I checked his last posts and he didnt yet.

I am sorry . I had to go to cousin wedding. So i was afk whole day. We are now going as planned again.

What are the Consumer Benefits of Spending Bitcoin?Nicholas Tomaino (@ntmoney) | Published on March 2, 2014 at 11:02 GMT | Analysis, Lifestyle, Merchants, News

Nick Tomaino is currently on the business development team at Coinbase, and is also a first-year business school student at the Yale School of Management. Prior to that, he worked in venture capital, most recently for Softbank Capital.

It is becoming increasingly clear to the public that Bitcoin is a compelling option for merchants as a more efficient payment processing option.

But one question that is far from clear and will likely take longer to become apparent is: what are the consumer benefits to using the digital currency, outside of investment and speculation?

Most mainstream consumers view bitcoin as a volatile asset that has no true benefit for consumers looking to spend on goods and services. In Senator Joe Manchin’s letter to the Treasury Department, he wrote:

“Its deflationary trends ensure that only speculators such as so-called ‘Bitcoin miners’ will benefit from possessing the virtual currency.”

This is a dangerous misconception that is often voiced by newcomers to bitcoin. While bitcoin is currently volatile and there are clear risks associated with it, there are also major benefits to spending bitcoin that are likely to become apparent as consumers learn more about the digital currency: cost savings, privacy, and ease of use.

Cost savings

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Cost savings may ultimately be the most compelling benefit for bitcoin consumers.

The cost savings on the merchant side are clear when you consider the interchange fees, assessment fees, chargeback fees and false declines that merchants currently incur by using existing payment methods.

Ultimately, these fees are passed on to consumers, evidenced by the $0.75 fee you may pay for a transaction under $10.

We’re already seeing large merchants pass the cost savings bitcoin brings on to consumers. Tiger Direct is currently offering $20 off all orders over $100. Fancy.com is currently offering a 25% off coupon on all bitcoin purchases until Sunday.

These promotions are short term, but we expect many large merchants to offer long term discounts on bitcoin purchases in the near future.

As these cost savings continue, consumers will soon realize that unlike credit cards companies, who cause merchants to price their goods higher and pass savings back to only a subset of the consumer base (credit card holders in the form of reward points), bitcoin enables lower prices for the masses.

Privacy

Privacy is on the minds of many US consumers right now, following the significant security breaches that occurred over the past few months at large retailers such as Target and Neiman Marcus.

Generally, when you pay for something online with a debit or credit card, you are giving that merchant personally identifiable information about yourself that is susceptible to theft.

While tokenization techniques are becoming more commonly used by credit card companies, these techniques are still susceptible to error. The full details of the Target breach haven’t emerged yet but many believe that the perpetrator found a way to circumvent Target’s tokenization.

When a consumer uses bitcoin to pay for goods or services online, they only share the public key and the amount of the payment with the merchant. There is no personally identifiable information shared that makes the consumer susceptible to identity theft.

In order for a consumer’s funds to be used, the public key and private key must be obtained by the thief. For consumers that value privacy and want to prevent identify theft, bitcoin provides an alternative to existing payment options.

Ease of use

Anyone that has used a Coinbase wallet to make a purchase on Overstock, Fancy or any of our 25,000 merchants has likely recognized that our two-click check out process is a truly seamless buying experience.

Paying in bitcoin eliminates the need to enter personal information and jump through additional verification hoops, steps which most existing payment methods require.

dollars

Coinbase and other bitcoin companies provide what is arguably the most frictionless checkout experience on the internet.

These three key benefits are likely to appeal to different consumers, and it is unclear which one will become the primary driver of long-term consumer adoption.

When the consumer Internet became widespread, we couldn’t have imagined amazing services like Airbnb or Uber being built on top of it – we’re at a similar place with the Bitcoin network.

Since Bitcoin is still in the early stages of its development, the benefits to consumers are myriad, and those listed above will be realized very soon. But as the technology matures and becomes ever more mainstream, the possibilities are endless.

Bankruptcy Protectionhttp://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Dollarz1.jpgSo, Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy protection in Tokyo on Friday. The details emerging today of the magnitude of the losses are frankly, staggering. Karpeles may have overseen the loss of up to half a billion dollars worth of Bitcoins. The first lawsuit has already been lodged by Gregory Greene in the US District Court in Chicago. Mr. Greene had approximately $25,000 worth of Bitcoin. Greene’s money is gone; everyone’s money is gone. Mt. Gox has lost roughly 750,000 of client’s Bitcoins as well as 100,000 of its own, almost 7% of total circulation.

Karpeles apologized today before saying: Dollarz

“The Bitcoin industry is healthy and it is growing. It will continue, and reducing the impact is the most important point.”

This may not fully reassure Mr. Greene or the many other small investors that are now finding themselves to be significantly poorer.

The cost of Mt. Gox going forward

Assuming the direct cost to investors will be in the region of half a billion dollars, and this close to the event this may prove not be an accurate assumption, let us then look at the indirect costs of the collapse. Bitcoin and almost every other cryptocurrency, with the exception of Ripple, has taken a heavy hit. There is a problem out there with contagion. Politicians tend to be negative towards cryptocurrency as it forces them to address new issues and there are powers available to them which have been honed on the creation and tracking of fiat money. Statements from politicians on both sides of the Pacific Ocean are adding fuel to the flames and we must remember that it is the bad news that sells newspapers. Bitcoin has clearly been damaged and the cynics are waiting in the wings, smiling and readying their “I told you so” speeches. Karpeles is right about one thing though, the Bitcoin project is ongoing and is strong and will survive.

The cost of the collapse of Mt. Gox may well end up topping one Billion dollars and the true cost may not be fully assessed in the short term. Investors are currently looking at the situation and are surely taking advice. It is blindingly that the level of oversight was not what they, as clients, should have reasonably expected. Gregory Greene has hit the ground running in Chicago with his legal team. This will certainly not be the last lawsuit. Remember as you listen to the bankers and politicians going forward that there is another agenda. Remember that crypto is the enemy. Let me leave with a quote from the late Josiah Stamp, a British Civil servant, an industrialist, an economist, a statistician, a writer and… oh, yes… a banker.

“Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take away from them the power to create money and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create money.”

Lawyers for the two men recently arrested in Miami for engaging in “too-large” bitcoin transactions are claiming that the men’s actions were legal because state law covers only money issued by the US or another country.

Many in the bitcoin community are hopeful that this argument is persuasive, seeing money laundering laws as an attempt to regulate thoughtcrime in finance. Others also argue that citizens do not currently owe the state of Florida any kind of explanation for why they want to buy or sell bitcoin.

Sting operation

In what may be the first instance of citizens being charged under state law for buying or selling bitcoin, Pascal Reid, 29, and Michell Abner Espinoza, 30, were charged on 6th February with money laundering and engaging in an unlicensed money-servicing business.

The two were contacted by undercover officers who were looking to exchange $30,000 dollars each for bitcoin, an amount that violates the state’s money laundering laws.

Those laws makes exchanges above $10,000 illegal without offering information to the government. The state also forbids frequent unlicensed transactions of more than $300 but less than $20,000 in any 12-month period.

However, Reid’s attorney, Ron Lowy, argues that “the language of the Florida statutes excludes and was never intended to cover bitcoins.”

It appears that, despite this, undercover police officers were conducting stings which were aimed at netting “individuals engaged in high volume bitcoin activity,” according to Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle.

Contrasting views

The prosecutor’s office claims that “bitcoins are often seen as a perfect means of laundering dirty money or for buying and selling illegal goods, such as drugs or stolen credit card information.”

Bitcoin is far from an ideal, or even particularly popular, method for laundering money, however.

Katherine Mangu-Ward noted for online magazine Slate: “About $8 billion worth of transactions were conducted in bitcoin from October 2012 to October 2013. During 2012, Bank of America processes $244.4 trillion in wire transfers and PayPal processed $145 billion.”

She summed up:

“The bitcoin haystack just isn’t big enough or messy enough to be a useful place to launder money right now. A better option: cash-heavy businesses, such as casinos or – yes – laundromats.”

“High level international cybercriminals have not by-and-large gravitated to peer-to-peer cryptocurrency, such as bitcoin,”said Secret Service Special Agent Edward Lowery. Adding:

“Instead, they prefer ‘centralized digital currency’ that is based somewhere with looser regulations and lazier enforcement.”

A spokesman for the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office told Bloomberg in a recent email correspondence, “As prosecutors, we relish the opportunity to help define the law regarding this potentially important field.”

Considering that money laundering laws are mostly useless, unevenly applied and very costly to comply with, many hope that Florida will not define the laws as applying to bitcoin.

The UK’s top tax agency is set to reverse an earlier ruling that classified virtual currencies as gift vouchers, exempting digital currency trading from a 20% value added tax (VAT).

Expected to be formally announced this week, the ruling would find HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), the UK’s customs and tax department, classifying virtual currencies as assets or private money, not as vouchers that required a tax on the value of the coins.

“I think this is the most progressive treatment of cryptocurrencies in the world. This is the most forward thinking and comprehensive advice in regards to taxation.”

HMRC had previously indicated it would consider rethinking its treatment of digital currency in December.

Reports say other taxes would still apply to businesses that buy, sell or exchange bitcoin. However, notably, bitcoin businesses will not be charged a tax on margins.

The news follows reports that the UK’s Payments Council, the organisation that sets strategy for payments, is assessing digital currencies, and amid increasing innovation from the local community that has seen the opening of bitcoin ATM alternatives and release of physical bitcoin price tags.

An open dialogue

Elliptic and other UK-based bitcoin businesses had earlier contacted the HMRC in an attempt to inspire UK lawmakers to rethink their classification of bitcoin, suggesting that it would discourage UK consumers from investing in the ecosystem and make it harder for domestic companies to compete globally.

The result, however, was that HMRC opened up discussions with the community.

Robinson indicates that in early meetings, UK lawmakers asked questions about various digital currency activities, such as mining, though the larger focus was the overall taxation of the new currencies.

Impact

The news spread quickly across the bitcoin community, with many lauding it as a validation of bitcoin at a time when the industry is in need of good news.

Further, though undeniably positive, others in the community suggested that still more work needs to be done to ensure the growth of digital currencies in the UK.

Screen Shot 2014-03-02 at 3.45.29 PM

The news is notable as most recent regulatory statements in the wake of operational issues at the now-bankrupt Japan-based exchange Mt. Gox had been trending negative. Vietnam became the latest to speak out against bitcoin this week, though over the last month, a slew of countries – from Hungary to Cyprus to Kazakhstan – have all issued warnings.

Terrawallethttp://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/front-300x171.pngTerrawalletTerrawallet is a multi-coin, online wallet.Terrawallet is an online, multi-coin wallet. It supports Bitcoin, Litecoin, Namecoin, and most other alt-coins. Terrawallet is beautifully designed and “95% finished,” according to the developer. There’s just one catch. The developer doesn’t have time for the project, so he’s selling it. You can try a demo of Terrawallet here. Hopefully someone purchases and continues to develop this promising project.

Mining hardware maker KnCMiner has launched its first bitcoin wallet, with an interesting twist.

As part of the launch, the first 100,000 downloads will be awarded with a few bucks to spend.

The KnC Bitcoin Wallet app is available on the Google Play Store and it’s free. Needless to say, there’s no app for iOS or Windows Phone. The wallets are pre-funded and it appears that the first 1,000 downloads will be awarded with $5 each, while the next 95,000 wallets will get $1 each (at the current BTC/USD exchange rate).

Bitcoin wallets for the masses

In order to appeal to a wider audience, KnC has teamed up with the Chicago Sun-Times, which is supporting the launch with ads and sponsored content in the form of a “Bitcoin for Beginners” guide.

KnC co-founder Sam Cole said the move was part of the company’s effort to educate a wider audience about the possibilities of Bitcoin:

“KnC wants to share information about this evolving technology with the public. Most people don’t understand what exactly Bitcoin is or how they could benefit fromusing KnC Wallet in their daily life. We’re trying to change that.”

KnCWallet Wrapports Chief Technology Officer Josh Metnick said the Chicago Sun-Times was an obvious choice, as the paper already embraced bitcoin. Wrapports publishes the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Reader and several dozen smaller publications in northern Illinois and Indiana.

“As a media company in today’s environment, it’s crucial for us to stay engaged with new forms of commerce like Bitcoin. Our initial Bitwall experiment proved successful, and we are going to keep pushing the boundaries across all types of technologies,” Metnick said.

The big hope is to equip 100,000 Chicagoans with an active bitcoin wallet, Metnick told us.

Teething problems

According to the Google Play page, the wallet is currently in version 0.9.1 and it has been installed just under 500 times.

The company’s wallet can send and receive bitcoins using phone contacts and it has an integrated QR scanner to dynamically convert BTC to local currency. However, KnC admits a couple of limitations – for example its NFC payments are still not working.

The app supports all Android versions back to 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, so it should work on the vast majority of devices launched over the last two to three years.

The first version of the app was uploaded on 21st February to a mediocre response. The average review score is 3.7 and some users are reporting several issues. However, KnC has acknowledged these negative comments and promises to iron out any kinks soon.

Let me pose an important question: What precisely is it that we want Bitcoin to do? Is it a secure peer to peer transaction system as it was envisioned in 2009 or has it recently been forced to undergo a metamorphosis? Has Bitcoin now become something that its developers never intended it to be?

Bitcoin, since its launch five years ago, has enjoyed massive publicity and has become widely accepted as a secure means of exchange. A cursory glance at the stats will show a tremendous success story but take a deeper dig into the figures and another tale begins to reveal itself.

Is too much investment killing Bitcoin?

The problem

The value of Bitcoin climbed in 2013 from just over $13 in January to $752 at the end of December. This is an approximate growth of just under 6000% in a world where few very banks were paying a return of over 5% on deposits. If you had cashed out in early December you would have got over $1,000. People are coming on board, investors are coming on board, and the media is coming on board. There is a rule in economics that “Good money pushes out bad money” and that seems to have been happening with our friend, Bitcoin.

A reasonable person: If a reasonable person, like you, who finds themselves to be in need of a laptop, had come into possession, or had had possession, of 100 bitcoins on January 1st 2013, and assuming these bitcoins had a fiat value of $1,350. Then that person could buy a computer to that value using their bitcoins. If that reasonable person was either, cautious, disorganised or indecisive and put off that purchase for one month then their bitcoins had climbed in value to $1,950. They could now buy a computer, assuming that prices in dollars remained stable, and have either $600 or 30 bitcoins left (change). On December 2nd, they could have bought the same dollar value of a computer for just 1.3 bitcoins.

People had a choice, would they keep their bitcoins, which were skyrocketing in value, or would they spend them? Reasonable people made the decision to spend their Dollars, Euro, Pounds and Yen and hold onto the bitcoins they had. This has led to widespread hoarding of not just bitcoins but cryptocurrencies in general, and while that makes sense for individual investors, who value a 6000% return, it has the effect of removing bitcoins from circulation. Bitcoin is by definition a currency with a capped maximum circulation of 21 million coins, if items are priced in Bitcoin and the number of coins in circulation then falls, then the value of a bitcoin must rise and also the volume of transactions will fall. As investors took over Bitcoin in the hope of short term gain their actions led to a level of reduced transactions but this fact was hidden from cursory observations by the increased value of the reduced number of coins.

Bitcoin can exist as a medium of investment, we have seen that in 2013, it can also exist as a medium of exchange and we see that on a daily basis too. I would argue that it cannot do both well. As investors move out of an overpriced bitcoin we will find that the volume of transactions begins to rise and the value, in dollars, begins to stabilise. This will, however, have the effect of rendering mining less efficient in the short term. In the longer term, we can reasonably assume that newer technologies and faster processing speeds will be available.

Maybe it is time to tackle the idea of the bitcoins that are supposedly in circulation, but have, in fact, been either deleted or lost? Remember all the computers that have been dumped since 2009, did everyone remove their bitcoins? Maybe we should give some thought to this and how to resolve it. Maybe Mt. Gox will shed some light going forward on how we should deal with lost bitcoins.

Clink Hostel customersBitcoiners visiting London no longer have to stray into the fiat world to pay for their accommodation. A chain of hostels in the UK capital is now accepting payments in both bitcoin and litecoin.

Clink Hostels, which owns two hostels in central London, including one in a former courthouse, began accepting the currency last month.

Dave Double, sales manager for Clink, encouraged the move towards bitcoin payments and is heavily involved in digital currencies, mining litecoin, qubitcoins, vertcoin and dogecoin – the latter of which he admits has problems in a business environment:

“It’s catchy because it’s a fun coin, but getting my CEO to take dogecoin seriously is difficult when the bank balance is at stake.”

Cheaper travel

Travellers have much to gain from using bitcoin, primarily in the avoidance of currency conversion fees.

In 2013, Austin Craig and Beccy Bingham-Craig spent 100 days living on bitcoin alone and travelling the world.

They told CoinDesk at the time that not having to worry about using a different currency in each country was a refreshing change. Double echoed those sentiments, saying:

“We love the idea that people from around the world can travel at the same exchange rate regardless of how rich or poor a country you’re in.”

At the moment Clink uses a straightforward QR code system for receiving payments, so travellers pay bitcoin straight to Clink’s wallet, but they are intending to use a third-party payment processor and “leaning towards Coinbase”.

Poor perceptions

Time and time again, small businesses that accept bitcoin cite one major problem with the use of digital currencies: public confidence in the currency.

Clink Hostels is no different. Double says that issues about converting bitcoin into fiat currency and vice-versa are no longer big problems for business – relatively mature payment processors like BitPay and Coinbase have resolved this question.

However, volatility and high-profile cases linking cryptocurrencies with incompetence, criminality and deceit continue to weigh on the minds of business owners, says Double:

“Volatility in the exchange rate puts [businesses] off as it seems complicated to make sure you get a good price for your product. Of course, this is [not true], as you can convert straight away, but things like Silk Road haven’t helped.”

From Double’s perspective, businesses will begin to feel more comfortable about getting into the bitcoin arena when there’s greater government clarity on bitcoin regulation and on bitcoin taxation, which we’re beginning to see.

For now, Clink gets to hold the crown of being the first hostel in the UK to accept bitcoin – something that gives them the edge, not over physical competitors, but online booking sites like booking.com.

“They can’t tap into [this community] at the moment,” says Double.

Perhaps, but with travel companies waking up to the potential of bitcoin, Clink won’t be alone for long.

A class action against Mt. Gox is being organised by a London law firm that says it will go after CEO Mark Karpeles personally to recover its clients’ lost bitcoins.

Selachii LLP says it is representing over 200 claimants from China, the US, Canada and 12 European countries, and that it will launch proceedings against Karpeles “wherever in the world he is”.

They also are in discussions with lawyers in Japan to mount a case against Mt. Gox, which has filed for bankruptcy in Japan after admitting it had lost around 750,000 its customers’ bitcoins. One of the claimants in the lawsuit has lost over 4,000 coins, which equates to $2.3m at today’s exchange rate.

The lawsuit may also make a claim against Tibanne, Mt. Gox’s parent company, which was founded by Mark Karpeles.

Separate legal action was also launched against Mt. Gox and Karpeles in Denver, Colorado, on Thursday by Mt. Gox customer Gregory Greene.

Fraud accusation possible

With Selachii taking action on multiple fronts, Mark Karpeles could find himself defending Mt. Gox’s actions on at least two continents.

Richard Howlett of Selachii says that the facts around the closure of what was once bitcoin’s largest exchange “don’t add up” and that the court action would force Mt. Gox and Mark Karpeles to prove that the huge bitcoin hack actually occurred:

“I don’t know if it’s true that they were hacked, no one knows if it’s true. but that’s something that will come out in court. I will be surprised if it’s as simple as they were just hacked.”

Howlett also raised questions about the loss of fiat funds in addition to Mt. Gox’s bitcoin, which can’t be explained by the hacking of data in the same way as a loss of bitcoin.

Mt. Gox’s public statements reassuring their customers that all was well could come back to haunt the company.

If the company and Karpeles were aware of Mt. Gox’s dire financial situation – which, considering the scale of the issue, is a plausible assumption – Howlett says they could be accused of behaving fraudulently by inducing customers to continue to invest their money in the exchange:

“They had to be honest [with their customers]. They should have stopped everything, because it appears that they were in serious financial difficulty.”

This element of potential liability could explain why Mt. Gox deleted all of its tweets in the days leading up to its eventual demise.

Furthermore, how bitcoins were allegedly stolen from cold storage will be a key technical point, with Howlett suggesting that one explanation could be they were never in cold storage and that Mt. Gox was acting negligently.

Frozen assets

Once a leading member of the bitcoin community, Mark Karpeles bowed deeply last week at the press conference in Japan announcing Mt. Gox’s bankruptcy filing.

The lawsuit could yet see him on his knees if his personal wealth is plundered to pay back Mt. Gox customers. Howlett says that every part of Karpeles’ wealth will be targeted:

“His bank accounts will be scrutinised, his finances will be scrutinised, any offshore accounts, all those sorts of things – if there’s money there, those assets could be pulled into the pot to distribute to the people in the class action.”

Hunting down a person’s assets could prove difficult, however, if they are largely held in bitcoin wallets. Proving ownership of bitcoin assets is not straightforward, even if it is possible to find them in the first place. Bitcoin’s held in cold storage could be hidden in any number of offshore locations.

It is is likely that assets owned by Karpeles, Tibanne and Mt. Gox will be frozen to prevent them being liquidated or hidden once the lawsuit is underway.

Mt. Gox win?

If the lawsuit succeeds, there will be a crucial legal battle about whether any payout should be in bitcoin or in fiat currency.

The value of bitcoin may have risen enough by the culmination of the case to make a fiat currency payout small compared to the total value of any remaining bitcoin in Mt. Gox’s control. Many of Selachii’s clients in the lawsuit are not necessarily looking for their bitcoin back, just their money, says Howlett:

“Many people have got their fingers burnt. The vast number of people we’ve spoken to would rather have the financial value back instead of bitcoin, they’ve been scared off now.”

If the lawsuit is settled in fiat currency and not in bitcoin, then “Mt. Gox could end up winning”, says Howlett, even if the allegations against them turn out to be true.

Warren Buffet: Bitcoin is Not a CurrencyNermin Hajdarbegovic | Published on March 3, 2014 at 14:46 GMT | Investors

Warren Buffet hardly needs an introduction – the legendary 83-year-old investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway has a résumé that can put just about anyone to shame.

However, you’re unlikely to find the phrase “bitcoin believer” on this particular CV.

Speaking to CNBC, Buffet touched on many issues, from the crisis in Crimea to his eventual successor and even bitcoin. What the ‘most successful investor of the 20th century’ had to say about the latter is not very encouraging, however.

Bitcoin won’t be around in a decade or two

Buffet brought up bitcoin in a curious context. He argued that in wartime it is much better to hold stocks rather than money. He pointed out that he made his first investment in 1942, when the war in the Pacific wasn’t going very well for the US.

He was right to do so, as the stock market grew during the war, while the dollar depreciated.

“American businesses are going to be worth more money. Dollars will be worth less, so that money won’t buy you quite as much, but you’ll be much better off owning productive assets over the next 50 years than you will be holding pieces of paper or, I’m not sure, bitcoins,” he said, chuckling.

Buffet does not view bitcoin as a currency at all:

“It’s not a currency. I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t around in the next 10-20 years.”

Buffet went on to point out that bitcoin is being priced off the dollar and that it is simply not a durable means of exchange.

Wars, markets, economies

Buffet appears to believe that world markets are overreacting to Russia’s decision to deploy troops to the Crimea, essentially invading Ukraine via a back door.

He said that he simply does not take such things into consideration, adding that he doesn’t buy businesses based on macro factors. In other words, even the prospect of a war in Europe doesn’t leave Buffet unfazed.

Buffet is bullish on the stock market and the US economy in general. He points to moderate, but consistent growth over the last few years and the resilience of the economy in face of public mistrust.

It is easy to see why some people may be reluctant following the crash of 2008, but Buffet thinks everything is in order – nobody is getting wildly optimistic or pessimistic, he concludes.

Warren Buffet: Bitcoin is Not a CurrencyNermin Hajdarbegovic | Published on March 3, 2014 at 14:46 GMT | Investors

Warren Buffet hardly needs an introduction – the legendary 83-year-old investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway has a résumé that can put just about anyone to shame.

However, you’re unlikely to find the phrase “bitcoin believer” on this particular CV.

Speaking to CNBC, Buffet touched on many issues, from the crisis in Crimea to his eventual successor and even bitcoin. What the ‘most successful investor of the 20th century’ had to say about the latter is not very encouraging, however.

Bitcoin won’t be around in a decade or two

Buffet brought up bitcoin in a curious context. He argued that in wartime it is much better to hold stocks rather than money. He pointed out that he made his first investment in 1942, when the war in the Pacific wasn’t going very well for the US.

He was right to do so, as the stock market grew during the war, while the dollar depreciated.

“American businesses are going to be worth more money. Dollars will be worth less, so that money won’t buy you quite as much, but you’ll be much better off owning productive assets over the next 50 years than you will be holding pieces of paper or, I’m not sure, bitcoins,” he said, chuckling.

Buffet does not view bitcoin as a currency at all:

“It’s not a currency. I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t around in the next 10-20 years.”

Buffet went on to point out that bitcoin is being priced off the dollar and that it is simply not a durable means of exchange.

Wars, markets, economies

Buffet appears to believe that world markets are overreacting to Russia’s decision to deploy troops to the Crimea, essentially invading Ukraine via a back door.

He said that he simply does not take such things into consideration, adding that he doesn’t buy businesses based on macro factors. In other words, even the prospect of a war in Europe doesn’t leave Buffet unfazed.

Buffet is bullish on the stock market and the US economy in general. He points to moderate, but consistent growth over the last few years and the resilience of the economy in face of public mistrust.

It is easy to see why some people may be reluctant following the crash of 2008, but Buffet thinks everything is in order – nobody is getting wildly optimistic or pessimistic, he concludes.

Each evening, ‘Felix’ sneaks into the computer suite at his university and starts up the machines. One by one, he runs a script on each computer and his ‘workers’ begin solving complex algorithms.

You wouldn’t know just by looking, but he’s making his own money – using his university’s computers to mine dogecoin.

Felix’s story mirrors that of a Harvard researcher who used his university’s supercomputer for dogecoin mining, earning himself a permanent ban from the computer and, presumably, a heck of a lot of coins in the process.

Like others who came onto the cryptocurrency scene late, Felix (not his real name), says he was gutted about “completely missing the bitcoin craze”. Mining dogecoin is his chance at getting on the gravy train while the price is low and riding it all the way to the moon – he hopes.

Dodging the IT department

After giving his laptop a shot at mining dogecoin before Christmas, he returned to his university, Imperial College London, after the holidays with a plan: he would use rows upon rows of university computers as his personal mining pool. So far he’s managed to sneak under the radar, he says:

“I’ve not had a single issue yet, so I’ve kept scaling up! It seems they don’t have anything set up to bring attention to the fact I’m maxing out the CPUs, which is nice.”

Felix mines using an online pool, meaning that his efforts are combined with others through a website. After installing a program on to each computer, their individual processing power is counted towards his single online account, allowing him to combine many computers with very little technical know-how.

Although he is able to dodge the Symantec security software guarding the computers for CPU mining, Felix says that he has been unable to utilise the graphic cards, which would allow him to tap into yet another level of computing power.

He hasn’t tried to crack the graphics cards’ defenses yet, as he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself, so to-date he’s only had access to i7-2770k processors.

Possible repercussions

It’s unclear what repercussions Felix would face if caught. Unlike the researcher who used Harvard’s supercomputer, Felix is mining with standard desktop computers used by students for coursework and browsing reddit, not in-demand research technology.

Running unauthorised scripts when everyone’s gone home might irk the IT department, not to mention the electricity he has been burning, but it’s perhaps the least immoral tactic people have used to leverage large numbers of computers for mining without permission.

Other methods include infecting computers with malware that extorts money but also runs mining operations in the background.

The amount he’s mined so far is fairly modest: just 30,000 DOGE, which currently holds a value of just £20 ($33). His strategy is to build up a large stock of dogecoin and hope the price rises spectacularly as it did with bitcoin.

Buying himself a specialised miner is out of the question, says Felix:

“I don’t find the cryptocurrency market stable enough to make real investments, at least for now, on a student budget.”

Funding gap

The ease with which mining operations can be set up, combined with the ready availability at universities of large amounts of computing power, suggest that Felix is by no means the only student mining in this way. Indeed, the Harvard supercomputer and Imperial’s computing suites may just be the tip of the iceberg.

Perhaps it’s even time the universities themselves got in on the game – what better way to fill the funding gap caused by government cuts than with Shiba Inu-branded digital currency? Sure beats raising tuition fees again.

Has MICRO started to write news somewhere else? He used to write here many times per day but today nothing. Also Ive read that on 1st March he will move to news section but I checked his last posts and he didnt yet.

I am sorry . I had to go to cousin wedding. So i was afk whole day. We are now going as planned again.

Has MICRO started to write news somewhere else? He used to write here many times per day but today nothing. Also Ive read that on 1st March he will move to news section but I checked his last posts and he didnt yet.

I am sorry . I had to go to cousin wedding. So i was afk whole day. We are now going as planned again.

Though many in the bitcoin community were eager to distance the industry from the spectre of Mt. Gox heading into March, the failure of what was once a leading player in the market has lead high levels of uncertainty to remain.

As evidence, despite Sunday’s news that the UK would formally exempt its bitcoin traders from a 20% tax, what attracted the most attention from reports was not the progressive move by the local government.

Rather, the focal point for many was a statement related to the Bitcoin Foundation’s opening of a new UK office.

The controversy centered around comments from Bitcoin Foundation executive director Jon Matonis featured by The Financial Times, which suggested the organisation would redomicile from the US to the UK this spring. While a seemingly small detail, this was news many members said they were hearing for the first time.

Jinyoung Lee Englund, the organisation’s director of public affairs, told CoinDesk, however, that the news was not new, and that despite some confusion, this doesn’t represent any changes in the foundation’s plans.

“Bitcoin is a global protocol and to better represent our international community, we made the decision to open a UK office last December.”

In fact, the news was first reported on 12th December, though the news may have been overshadowed by the tandem announcement of new international chapters in Canada and Australia.

Community reaction

News about the Bitcoin Foundation’s move traveled fast on Sunday, with some members taking to the organisation’s official message boards to suggest that communication between the organisation and the community may need improvement.

The result was that foundation informed community members on various platforms of the announcement, providing a link to the original press release that stated the vision for its new office as well as how it would play a role in the organisation’s long-term strategy.

Global focus requires London office

Statements from the Bitcoin Foundation indicate that the new office is meant to be a sign of the organisation’s status as a global entity. For example, Seattle, while the best location for local resident and founder Peter Vessenes to create the organisation, may now be ill-equipped for the foundation and its increasing reach, past statements suggest.

Explained Matonis in the original release:

“Strengthening and equipping local Bitcoin communities worldwide is at the core of the foundation’s International Affiliate Program and a priority for 2014.

London is one of the most international cities in the world and the foundation will be best positioned to represent and support the inherently global Bitcoin community from there.”

The Bitcoin Foundation said at the time that it planned to keep its US office in Washington, DC to “focus on US individual and corporate membership, public policy and public relations”. The international office in London will supervise and support new chapters.